Crepes and Connections
by IFallLikeLeavesAndSnow
Summary: When someone leaves you crepes as a midnight snack, they deserve a heartfelt thank you, and sometimes thank you's can go both ways. Shameless fluff, with touches of crack/satire.


Crepes and Connections

A/N: Being an avid fan of Chezapocalypses NC, I took to reading the Let's Read with Nella! Tiger's Curse, which is, by all accounts, an absurd book. Still, I love a challenge, and admittedly, some fluff. Therefore, although this was not a challenge at all in terms of being asked to do it, I did it anyway. Also, although I did mostly intend this to be fluff, with a touch of Houck's writing style, some parts might have come off more . . . satirical than I intended. Anyway for now, as Houck would likely put it, Namaste. Enjoy (or hate, if you actually like this book, or hey, maybe you'll like it anyway).

P.S: This story takes place in a world where Kelsey is actually HUMAN, and not some robot who apparently suffers from none of the after effects that would affect a living, breathing person. Also, she has at least some respect for other cultures and knowledge of her ignorance of them.

-TC-

Kelsey didn't want to wake up for a number of reasons. Reason 1: The bed was _really _comfortable, Reason 2: She was still tired, and Reason 3: Waking up would mean moving, and when you've spent the last twenty four hours blundering through a series of bizarrely still functional death traps, you typically don't want to move. So no, Kelsey didn't want to move, but while her brain said no, her stomach said yes, especially when her nose informed it of an almost divine scent. As one might imagine, having nothing to eat after a day of strenuous and _terrifying_ activity can leave the body hungry, and whatever was making that smell had to be devoured with extreme prejudice.

Blinking drearily, Kelsey opened her eyes and awoke from a dreamless slumber. Sitting up, she blinked away the spots in her eyes and cast her gaze about the room. There, sitting on the bedside table (ornate mahogany, in case you were wondering), was a tray piled with fluffy crepes. Next to the pile of fluffy crepes was a stack of sliced bananas surrounded by a ring of strawberries and blueberries. A bowl of strawberry syrup sat next to a bowl of yogurt, and the near gormet meal was finished off with a mug of steaming hot chocolate, which, upon tasting, was found to be slightly spicey (It was a rather sizable tray, if you hadn't noticed). Halfway through devouring the entire tray, she paused.

"Who could have done this?" She pondered outloud. Briefly she thought it might have been Ren in a moment of compassion, then she realized, wait he's been a tiger for three centuries, and was a prince before that. Gormet cooking? I don't think so. Mr. Kadam, she thought, that must be it. With as much care as an exhausted american teenager could manage, she lifted the tray and left the room. Making her way through the lavish, oddly European themed mansion, Kelsey searched for Mr. Kadam. Even with her uncanny sense of direction that allowed her to navigate foreign roads though, she couldn't find him. Eventually, she realized that with the food still hot, he would likely be putting things away in the kitchen. When she arrived at the sizable room, she found that she was correct in her assumption, as Mr. Kadam was currently placing a bag of chilled blueberries into the fridge.

Gently placing the tray on the (polished marble) island, she coughed slightly. Mr. Kadam didn't give any inclination that he'd been surprised, and after putting the blueberries away, he turned, a smile on his face.

"Hello Kelsey" he said, and as he had done on the day they met, he bowed, his hands held together. "You-" Kelsey began, but stopped before she could say, "don't have to keep doing that." Have respect for other peoples cultures Kelsey, she thought to herself.

Mr. Kadam waited patiently for Kelsey to finish speaking "You look really nice." She finished lamely. However, lame of a cover up it was, it was true. Clad in a plain white shirt, with an informal looking pair of tan pants on, the man looked years younger than he did in his suits. As she observed him, Kelsey found that his face, though undeniably aged, was wrinkle free, and had nairy a liverspot to be seen; what's more, his eyes glittered with some unknown light, and as she noticed it, his grin seemed to become just the slightest bit mischevious.

"Why thank you" he said.

"Its nothing Mr. Kadam."

He hesitated for a second, eyes flicking to the left in contemplation before speaking "You can call me Anik, if you wish." Kelsay pasued for a moment before saying "Anik, I like it, it has a nice ring to it."

Anik smiled, and this time Kelsey could definetly see the mischief glittering in his eyes. '"So" he said "are you full, or was something to your disliking? Kelsey was thrown for a second before she realized he was talking about the tray. Laughing slightly she shook her head "No no, I just wanted to say thank you, it's really delicious. Anyway, I was wondering if maybe you wanted some of it?"

Anik's eyes widened slightly, after all when you spend three hundred years caring for a tiger who is also a prince, you don't get much in the way of thank you's, but he shook his head "No no, I insist, it was made for you, I will make something for myself later." Kelsey smiled, and in a voice undercut with mirth said "You insist huh?" She raised an eyebrow. "Yes" he said simply. Kelsey smirked and in the same tone replied with "Well, _Anik_, _I _insist that _you_ have some."

Anik shook his head again and raised his hand to placate her "No no, it is fine I-" Kelsey cut him off. In a gentle tone she spoke "Listen, Anik, it's not about the food, well, not entirely. The entire time I've been here you've been so nice to me, even after I've made mistake after mistake, and believe me" she looked into his eyes, which were so much younger than she had thought before "I know I've made a lot. But no matter what I've done, you haven't berated me." She grabbed his still raised hand "I just wanted to say, well, thank you I guess, thank you thank you thank you. Without you, there's no way I'd have ever come this far."

Kelsey's hand began to slip from Anik's but he clutched at it with gentle strength. "Kelsey" he said "It is I who must thank you. I have been alone for three hundred years, never being able to get close to another person, because I knew that one day they would slip away from me. Even when I had Ren, well, a tiger doesn't exactly make the best of conversationalists." He chuckled, and smiled at her again, and Kelsey could feel the warmth coming from him. "I should probably tell you, I knew you were the one the moment I saw you." Kelsey tilted her head at this. "Do you know how many brown haired girls I've seen in my third of a millenia? More than I could count." His gaze grew distant for a moment, his mind flicking back through decades past. Eventually though, he returned to the present and looked at Kelsey once again "But you? The moment I set my eyes on the girl by the tigers cage I knew it could only be her, could only be you."

Kelsey met the eyes of the one person who had actually been both informative and kind to her who had been able to communicate in english without sounding like he was regurgitating bits of a dictionary, and felt something. It wasn't what she felt with Ren. That was quick and sparky, and after the fact not entirely pleasant. This was . . . warm. Yes that was the word, warm. Warm and safe and secure and friendly, and maybe just a touch of something else. This was someone who she could talk to, someone who would listen, someone to tell jokes to, someone with a shoulder to cry on, and someone who would tell her when she needed to take a step back and calm herself down.

Tearing her gaze away, she looked back at the tray "So" she said somewhat awkwardly after the deeply filled silence "are you going to take some of the food or not?" Anik smiled at her, but it was a different sort of smile than the usual one he wore. It was mischevious, like the one he had worn earlier, but also filled with a kind of friendly smugness. "Why of course I will, who would I be to deny the request of a lady."

Kelsey laughed at that, and turned as Anik lifted the tray with one hand and the kind of grace that takes years -or even centuries- to master and brought it over to a small table (made from solid sheesham, this heavy duty, high quality table sells for only £205.00 on ebay).

Sliding into a chair, Kelsey reached for one of the remaining crepes, and in what could only be the universe trying to pass her a message in the most cliche form possible, brushed her hand against Aniks as he did the same. The moment was bright and tingly and warm, like Anik, and was over both much too soon and not soon enough. Before he could say anything, Kelsey offered him the crepe, and after a seconds hesitation, he accepted it.

Meeting his eye's once more, Kelsey grinned, and for no reason that she could discern, began telling him about an incident she had had in a library when she was seven. Anik listened, and laughed, and simply _was_, and when her story was over, he began telling her about an accident that had occured in the 1940's. And like that the two whiled the night away, with stories from years and decades past.

And in the morning, when they were both slumbering in their chairs, the crepes were gone.

But the connection remained.

-TC-

A/N: Tada, what do you think? For a book that I've only ever read excerpts from, I'd like to think that its not _too _awful. Anyway, that's it, so, for now, Namaste.

P.S Please read and review, every bit helps, even ones for stories written on a whim.


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